


dance till the morning light

by goldheart



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst, Fairy!Yuri, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Temporary Character Death, kitsune!Yuuri, knight!Otabek, loosely based on Slavic Folklore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2018-12-21 03:57:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11935830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldheart/pseuds/goldheart
Summary: He sees the man at dusk, when the horizon is painted in shades of burnt orange and blushing pink and the coming of night brings the ripe time for mischief.Yuri is a murderous wind spirit. Otabek is the foreign knight travelling through Yuri’s forest whom he wants to lure to an untimely death. Things don’t go according to plan.





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to apologise off the bat for the sections being so wildly different in length. That's just how it happened. Whoops.
> 
> The title comes from Heather Dale's _[Fair Folk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt2TwJU24Hw%22%22)._
> 
> Beta'd by the amazing [ModernArt2012](https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernart2012) and [vibidi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibidi/pseuds/vibidi)! Bless my friends, because they're such wonderful people.

He sees the man at dusk, when the horizon is painted in shades of burnt orange and blushing pink and the arrival of the night brings the ripe time for mischief. The faerie supposes that this man is like any other man who has stopped in the woods: A human, a slave to his desires and emotions, chained and freed both by mortality and a few short years on Earth. He loves to play games with men until he tires of them. Then, to the eternal entertainment of the lesser creatures of the forest, he lures them into enchanted dances until they dropped dead of exhaustion. Such is his plan for the hapless traveller.

So maybe he perches up in the trees and watches the man for too long. _Bite me,_ he thinks savagely. _I do whatever the hell I want._

He has an excuse, if the forest bothers him about it. His excuse is that this one’s… different. Most men who travel through these woods so late do so because they are ignorant. They’re merchants, smugglers, bandits and criminals from faraway regions that do not impart warnings about the fae in the woods of the North. This is how he tricks men; scraggly creatures, with scruffy cheeks and clothes caked with mud and dirt, teeth yellow with lack of care and eyes hungry with the desire to take and consume the beautiful.

But this man takes care by the brook to beat the dust from his boots, to wipe the mud from the strange metal plates glimmering with care under the cape fastened over his shoulder in the deepest black. His eyes are clear, his skin clean, his hair washed but windblown from the journey, and–oh! He cares about his steed. The fae creature hooks his feet into the branch and leans closer to watch the man brush away the dirt and mud from her coat, murmuring to her in a tongue he doesn't understand and patting her flank.

The leaves rustle with the shift in the air as Yuri releases the branch and drifts down to the forest floor, landing lithely on his feet like a forest cat. Curiously, he creeps closer, shimmying along the forest floor to watch. Something about him makes Yuri want to hesitate longer, to capture the memory of this curious man before he reaches out and snatches him away for a deadly dance.

‘You can come out,’ the man says. Yuri lets go of the branch in his surprise. It smacks him in the face, leaving him swearing with the sting. The harsh words drift into the breeze, for which Yuri is grateful. He attempts to play it off, slipping along the ground and swirling a playful breeze around the man. The infuriating fool just follows the movement of the wind with his eyes, offering nothing more.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ the man says. As he watches, Yuri realises that the refusal to react is meant to keep him from startling. He snorts. The man’s eyes move towards the sound of his voice.

Yuri lets the wind shift around him, revealing himself to the man as he always does. He's a slight creature, willowy and fair, with golden hair spilling like silk down his shoulders in a loose, impossibly elaborate braid. Draped over his pale limbs is a clinging robe like mist, or perhaps spider silk, or maybe even both. It glitters with tiny gems, or maybe dew droplets, and fades into the air around his feet. It’s meant to dazzle and entice. Almost always, it works.

The man blinks once, twice, and relaxes his harsh stance just a little. Carefully, he goes back to brushing out his horse’s mane, though he keeps Yuri in his line of sight. Assessing, not coveting. It’s a strange shift from the hungry eyes of every other man Yuri’s targeted, and suddenly, he’s itching to get more than a passing glance. He’s starving. He’s _angry._

He could start his inviting dance, speaking the words that will draw this man to his arms and to the beginning of his end. He leans forward, brow furrowed in concentration, and—

‘Hey, asshole,’ Yuri says irritably. ‘Look at me.’

Damn, that’s not what he meant to say.

It gets the man to pause, though, his hand stopping in the horse’s curtain of hair. Slowly, he looks over at Yuri, directly in the eyes and nowhere else. It’s polite. It’s respectful. It’s infuriating.

Yuri could just command him to dance. He’s done that before, with the lovesick and grieving. He, no doubt, will do it again.

Instead, he asks, ‘Why the hell are you out here alone? Are you stupid?’

* * *

His name is Otabek, Yuri discovers. He is a knight, which is a kind of… helper, he guesses? Whatever it is, it’s not what the merchants and thieves who most often pass through this way are. He’s from the city of Almaty, south of these woods by many days’ journey, and he has come through to answer a summons by the King in the North.

This Yuri coaxes out of Otabek by settling onto a fallen tree and talking at him as the knight sets up a camp for the night, collecting fallen branches and striking a fire before he washes his mud-caked boots in the stream. Until now, Yuri hadn’t realised how bored he was getting with lecherous men who fell hook, line, and sinker for his game. Otabek is the most respectful person Yuri has ever met, murmuring his thanks to the water as he tugs his boots back on and laces them up with simple efficiency. His movements with his horse are gentle and never sudden. He always looks Yuri in the eye when he’s talking. It’s refreshing. Most of the things Yuri despises about men, the things that make it so easy to take them by the hand and lead them in his deadly dance, do not apply to Otabek.

‘And you?’ Otabek asks, once the comfortable silence that has developed between them seems to have stretched for too long. ‘Where do you come from…?’

‘Yuri,’ he answers without thinking.

‘Yuri.’ Otabek’s mouth twitches up at the corners with a small smile. ‘Very human.’

‘Shut up.’ It is not Yuri’s full name. Yuri flicks his hand at Otabek, pushing the water up with the wind and splashing the man in the face. Otabek blinks and wipes it off with his sleeve. Yuri watches a drop slip off his hair and land in the dirt. ‘Here. The trees, the brook, the ground. The forest is my home.’

Otabek’s eyes drift up to the trees. Yuri watches him watching the breeze that curls playfully around the leaves, rustling them with the song of the forest. It’s a mournful, impatient tune. _Get on with it,_ it sings. But for once, Yuri… doesn’t want to. This is nice. Otabek is nice. Men are never nice. They are greedy, rough, and dirty. Disgusting.

‘Do you want to dance?’ Otabek asks, his eyes still on the branches.

Yuri nearly falls off the log in surprise. ‘What?’

Otabek turns his head just a little, his eyes drifting back down to meet Yuri’s. Odd, this far north, to see eyes so dark. They glimmer like slow-dripping amber, soaked in quiet knowledge. ‘Do you want to dance?’ he repeats patiently.

‘Do you have a death wish?’ Yuri shoots back, something twisting unpleasantly in his stomach.

‘No.’ Otabek looks away again. ‘But I thought you might ask eventually.’

Yuri swallows. ‘How did you know?’

Otabek smiles blandly at him. ‘For my people, the god _Jel Ata_ is mischievous, violent, restless. His servants bear ill will, but _Jel Ata_ also brings victory to warriors. Traders from the north bring us stories of the female wind spirits, dead before their wedding days, who protect women and dance men to their deaths should they displease them.’ Otabek looks him over. ‘You’re not female.’

‘Of course I’m not female,’ Yuri says, bristling. ‘And I was never human.’

‘Hmm. A blend of stories, then. But that’s often the truth.’ Otabek waits for the answer, his head held high and his shoulders squared. ‘Well?’

Yuri reaches out to touch Otabek’s shoulder, to turn him and draw him up into the dance. His fingers hover. He closes his eyes and pulls them back, dropping his hands in his lap. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No, I don’t think I do.’

Otabek looks back at him, appraising him. Then he tugs off his glove with his teeth and sticks out his hand. ‘In that case, are you going to become friends with me, or not?’

Yuri considers the word, rolling it around in his head. It’s almost foreign to him. Finally, he wraps slender fingers around Otabek’s hand and shakes it firmly. ‘Friends.’ It feels like a promise, and for some reason, it’s… exciting.

The fire crackles with approval.

* * *

Otabek leaves at dawn, perched tall and strong atop his horse. Yuri, for the first time in his existence, lets a man go. That’s that, he thinks. That’s the end.

 


	2. 2.

When Otabek returns, moons later, Yuri nearly falls out of the tree in which he’s perched, buzzing with the life force of the man he just drowned in the river. He doesn’t feel guilty about it—he has to get his energy somewhere, and the man was a shithead—but seeing Otabek makes Yuri want to ensure the body’s been washed downstream. It’s a stupid concern, since the knight knows what he is, but Yuri feels the odd need to impress his new friend, and a dead body? Not the most impressive move.

He throws his braid over his shoulder and shifts into view. ‘You came back.’

‘I did. Thought I might say hi. That’s what friends do, right?’ Otabek gives him one of his little smiles and offers him a slice of the apple he’s pulling apart with his knife. Yuri plucks it from his fingers and nibbles on it, letting the tart juice spread across his tongue.

‘Wouldn’t know,’ he comments as he finishes it. ‘I’ve never had a friend before.’

Otabek hums at that and eats a thin slice off of the back of his knife.

‘Tell me a story,’ Yuri demands.

After careful consideration, Otabek launches into a thrilling tale about a creature he met in the depths of the mountains, a wily fox spirit who told riddles about food and hounds and challenged him to a battle of wits. Otabek admits he lost to the clever fox after a long battle, but the creature was so impressed by him that he let the man go.

‘Hah?! You didn't win?’ Yuri asks, offended. ‘That’s pathetic. What kind of hero are you?’

Otabek chuckles. ‘I don't win everything. Part of being a good player is learning how to lose with dignity. I don't intend to lose again, if I meet him once more.’

Yuri scoffs. ‘I could have beaten him.’

‘I’m sure,’ Otabek says.

‘Liar.’ Yuri scowls at him. ‘I hate liars.’

‘No, really.’ Otabek sets the knife and the apple core down, leaning forward on his knees. ‘I can tell by your eyes. You’re vicious, clever. A soldier, ready for battle.’

Yuri blinks once, twice. The breeze settles around him. ‘A soldier?’

‘A warrior,’ Otabek amends, misinterpreting Yuri’s surprise as confusion. ‘A fighter.’

Yuri glances away in thought, tugging his lip between his teeth. ‘You’re strange, Otabek Altin.’

Otabek smiles. ‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Yuri peers suspiciously at him.

‘Well. You’re strange, too.’ Otabek raises a challenging brow at him. ‘Asking a human to tell you pointless stories? You’re playing an elaborate game.’

‘Maybe I am,’ Yuri retorts. ‘Maybe I’m just winning your trust to lure you into my deadly clutches.’ He wiggles his fingers at Otabek for effect. ‘Why, you impressed? Didja fall for it?’ Otabek snorts. Yuri grins sharply in response. ‘No, really. Why’d you come back?’

‘I had business in the North. Thought I’d take the scenic route.’ Otabek glances at him. ‘I wasn’t lying then, either. I wanted to see you.’

Yuri coughs. ‘Does that mean you missed me?’

Otabek smiles and picks up his knife, wiping the apple juice from its blade before spinning it in his fingers. Yuri’s captivated by the flash of metal, the whisper of the edge scratching along Otabek’s skin but never breaking it.

‘Show me your forest?’ Otabek asks instead.

* * *

Yuri takes the knight by the hand and leads him through the trees, dead leaves crackling beneath Otabek’s boots and silently giving way under Yuri’s bare feet. All around them, the forest shifts to greet them: The birds perch on branches, their fae riders peering over the crowns of their heads to watch. From behind the trees, the dryads hold out hands to Yuri that he ignores, their disappointment flying between them in quiet, tittering noises like the rustling of leaves. He guides Otabek around a well-concealed faerie ring and into a meadow that quivers with life, his curious kin approaching to examine the stranger.

‘Tell me more,’ Otabek presses as the sun hangs low in the sky. ‘Is there a word for what you are? Are there more of you? How long have you been here?’

‘I’ve killed men who ask fewer questions,’ Yuri says sourly. Otabek shoots him a small smile at that, a barely-there change in expression.

‘I like proving people wrong,’ he says.

Yuri appraises him for a moment, considering. The wind swirls around them as he plops into the grass, his robes gently floating down around him.

‘I don’t know what they call me. If they call me anything. In these woods, I am… me. Yuri. Before I was Yuri, I had no name in your tongue.’ He kicks at the ground. ‘There are other fae. Leshiye in the trees, rusalky in the streams, elves who live beneath the stones in elaborate caves. Where the river meets the sea, there are sometimes lost selkies, who come from the west. The little fae ride rodents and birds like steeds and make homes out of flowers.’

Otabek blinks. ‘I haven’t seen any.’

Yuri snorts. ‘That’s because humans are blind idiots.’ He slides up behind Otabek on the breeze and passes his hand over the knight’s eyes, bending the air in front of them to allow Otabek to peer through the glamour. ‘Look.’

Yuri watches with satisfaction as Otabek begins sees the world as it is, his eyes wide and full of wonder as he glances about. It seems like a rare thing to get his jaw to drop, so Yuri milks it for all it’s worth, dropping an arm over Otabek’s shoulder to point everything out. The pixies playing on the forget-me-nots, the bitter dryads, the red firebird perched on one of the low-hanging branches at the edge of the clearing. The cluster of bright wildflowers. The willow tree leaning over the place where the stream widens into a pond.

‘I can see those things on my own,’ Otabek says, but does not push Yuri’s arm away. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘It’s her.’ Yuri wiggles his toes into the grass. ‘The forest.’

‘You speak as if it is a single being.’

‘She is.’ Yuri leans forward. ‘One being composed of many. Old and powerful and cranky and a bit in love with your king.’

‘The King in the North is not my king,’ Otabek parries.

‘Then why do you serve him?’ Yuri presses, pulling his arm back.

‘Honour,’ Otabek answers almost immediately. ‘His Majesty is a just and merciful king.’ Yuri gives him a look at that, and so Otabek amends, ‘…if somewhat frivolous. But men have their faults, and his are minor compared to the tyrant kings to the west.’

‘Hmmph. Seems stupid,’ Yuri says, and collapses back into the grass. Otabek turns to look at him. ‘Why not just do what you want?’

‘Do you do what you want?’ Otabek challenges. Yuri opens his mouth to retort that yes he fucking does, thank you very much, but then his fingertips tingle where they touch the grass and he sighs.

‘I don’t leave the forest. If she says I can’t do something, I can’t do it. If she really wants me to do something, I will. But otherwise, yeah.’

Otabek nods. ‘So it is the same thing. You will do what you wish because you can. I serve the King in the North because I wish to do the right thing.’

Yuri flicks a breeze at Otabek. It ruffles the long strands of hair along his scalp. Admirably, Otabek does not so much as blink. ‘So why not serve your own king?’ Yuri asks curiously.

Otabek looks away. ‘I wish to see more of the world. When I am older, more established, I will be chained to the whims and needs of my kingdom. For now, I will seek justice where the winds take me.’

Yuri grins and swirls around him in a stream, settling back into a human shape rather close to the knight’s face. That gets a response; Otabek recoils, tipping over into the grass. Yuri giggles.

‘The winds like that idea,’ he says brightly. Then what Otabek said catches up to him and he frowns, peering at him with narrowed eyes. ‘Wait, what do you mean, “older”?’

The corner of Otabek’s mouth twitches up slightly. ‘I am a fairly new knight,’ he explains. ‘I was born eight-and-ten years ago.’

Yuri blinks, chewing on that tidbit for a moment. Perhaps, then, that is why his face is rounder than that of those who have tried to pass through these woods before, why his skin is less worn.

‘Why? How old are you?’ Otabek asks, misunderstanding Yuri’s expression and pushing himself up on his elbows.

Yuri blinks at him, this incredibly young man who looks wiser and more experienced than any other Yuri has had the pleasure and misfortune to meet, and remembers the faces of others he has seduced and killed over the years: fresh-faced things, some mourning lost brides, others brash enough to poke at the wrath of the forest, and those who just wandered too far off the path. A prince, a very long time ago, who played with the wind and lost his life as the price. Generations and generations before the fae King of the North. Yuri has lost count of how many there have been. Years and years of dead young men to go with the old, the weary, the ugly, the lecherous. For the first time in his existence, guilt creeps into his heart, turning his face away from Otabek’s intense stare.

‘You don’t want to know,’ Yuri murmurs.

To Yuri’s eternal gratitude, Otabek remains silent on the matter. He just falls back in the grass again, his dark eyes tracking up to the clear summer sky. The wind sighs around Yuri as he settles onto his stomach to watch Otabek breathe, the undeniable evidence of life thrumming in his veins and curling from his lips. Yuri fights down the urge to reach forward and take it. In warning, the birds fly away, departing in a rush that leaves the branches shuddering. _Get on with it,_ whispers the forest.

‘You must be lonely,’ Otabek murmurs, and the forest goes silent. ‘If you are the only one.’

Yuri looks away. There are retorts, sharp and barbed, on the tip of his tongue, but they bite into his own flesh, holding him silent.

He thinks about it sometimes, of course. There have been… dalliances, in the past. Yuri has never been averse to playing with his food. But people seem like bubbles: Here for a moment, gone in the next. And he has never been patient enough to care. Men are vile creatures.

(Not all of them, a tiny part of him whispers, and he thinks of the prince, so many years ago. He looks at Otabek and sees something solid, something that threatens permanence where there is none).

Otabek, to his credit, does not push the issue.

* * *

The sun sets slowly, drawing out the evening into a quiet, gentle climax. Otabek has removed the metal armour strapped around his chest and up and down his limbs, his cloak spread out on the ground underneath them. Yuri brings him a bundle of berries and a square of swelling honeycomb. As they watch the sky spread in shades of orange and soft pink, Otabek spreads Yuri’s gifts onto slices of something beige, thick, and spongy, but he passes it to Yuri instead of eating it, choosing to bite into a plain slice of his own.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ Yuri demands suspiciously, eyeing the berries.

Otabek quirks a smile at him. ‘Eating food gifted by a faerie? I’m not so stupid, Yuri.’

Yuri narrows his eyes, but Otabek’s not joking. Yuri looks down at the spongy thing. ‘I’m not trying to trick you. What is this?’

‘Bread. It’s grain, ground down to a powder and mixed with water, sometimes egg. You set it over a fire until it looks like that.’

Yuri hums and takes a bite. The bread is more flavourful than he expected, dense and soaked with honey. He finishes off the slice and licks at his fingers. When he looks up, he catches Otabek watching him. Otabek does not look away; he just frowns a little.

‘What, do I have it on my face?’ Yuri scrapes the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘Better?’

‘Mmm,’ Otabek agrees, and looks away.

Otabek does not touch his gifts again. Yuri watches the honey ooze down the sides of the leaf on which he’d brought it, and he thinks it rather a waste. There must be a way to get Otabek to trust him. If Yuri wanted to keep him here forever, there would be other ways. _Easier_ ways. And when has Yuri ever wanted to keep a human forever?

(That’s not a bad idea, actually.)

Yuri huffs. ‘Have you eaten fruit from the forest? Sipped water from the stream?’ He takes the knife from Otabek’s side and slices the bread again, spreading more honey and berries over it. The bread becomes reddish with the juice. Red like blood. ‘It’s the same as eating it from me. All I did was get it for you. There’s no enchantment.’

‘No,’ Otabek says, raising a brow. ‘Thank you.’

Yuri rolls his eyes and moves to kneel in front of Otabek, holding the slice in his hand. The honey drips onto his fingers. ‘I kept you out here all day. The least I can do is feed you. I don’t need it. Who else is going to eat it?’

‘No,’ Otabek repeats, but it is more hesitant. ‘The ants will. The mice. The little fae.’

This is true. Yuri can see a cluster of pixies in the wildflowers, eyeing the honeycomb hungrily and murmuring to each other. Nasty, annoying creatures. No fucking way is he giving them the food after promising to clean up the hive he took the honey from in exchange for a square. That makes Yuri want to let it go even less, and before he thinks twice about it, he’s straddling Otabek’s legs, the slice of bread just barely touching Otabek’s lips.

‘I’m not trying to trick you,’ Yuri says, exasperated. ‘If you ate from the forest, you ate from me. If you drank from the stream, it’s the same. This is not food for faeries. It will not keep you here.’ He drops his voice low, calm, reassuring. ‘Come on. Don’t you trust me?’

Otabek doesn’t answer. Instead, he tilts his chin up and slowly takes the bread from Yuri’s fingers with his teeth. Without taking his eyes off of Yuri, he holds it and finishes the slice, his throat bobbing as he swallows.

Yuri doesn’t move. He feels rooted in place, like the forest herself has come up to wrap around his ankles and hold him there, transfixed. But it’s not her; she is instead eerily silent, in the way that she is when he is on the hunt.

Otabek does not push him away.

‘No,’ Otabek says again, but quieter, rougher. ‘No, I don’t.’

* * *

Yuri stands watch over him when they return to the trees and Otabek sleeps, his cloak pulled up around his shoulders. A nocnitsa tries to approach the sleeping knight, but Yuri hisses at her from the trees, baring all of his sharp teeth at her in warning. She looks up and pales at the sight of him before scurrying back into the night. Pest averted, Yuri turns his attention back to Otabek, watching the rise and fall of his chest.

‘Don’t trust me, my ass,’ Yuri mutters.

 _You are delaying the inevitable,_ the forest murmurs around him. _This new game you play is not very convenient._

Yuri doesn’t know how to explain that this is not a game, that this does not end with an empty shell staring up at nothing while Yuri steals away with Otabek’s life. She wouldn't understand. He can hardly understand it himself.


	3. 3.

‘This is stupid,’ he mutters, drifting through the woods and stirring up the leaves. A faerie squawks indignantly when he blows the roof off of her shack, but he doesn't much care. Serves her right for not attaching it hard enough. ‘So stupid. Why does he get to be so—’ Yuuri waves his hands helplessly, dragging his sleeves through the underbrush and making them rustle. ‘Ugh!’

The forest rustles its leaves at him, birds’ wings fluttering. She’s _laughing_ at him. Fucker. He kicks at a tree trunk, but that does nothing at all.

‘Waltzing in here the way he does,’ Yuri continues, even though he’s fairly sure now that he’s being ignored by her. ‘Like some sort of _hero._ Men aren’t actually supposed to be like that!’  

The wind has always been better company anyways, whispering its agreements in his ears. _Yes,_ it tells him. _Very annoying._

‘Exactly! All, all muscle and kindness and his damn eyes!’ Yuri complains, flopping onto the forest floor in a puff that sends dead leaves flying. ‘Men aren’t supposed to be like that! It’s supposed to be easy!’ He presses his face into the damp, moulding leaves, his hands shaking. ‘I didn’t kill him, and look where I am now!’

 _This is pointless,_ the wind murmurs. _Just accept it._ A sigh. _Would you not feel saddened if you had killed him?_

He supposes the wind has a point there, but that’s the root of it all, isn’t it? Frustrated, he pushes himself up with his palms to get to his feet, but stops short when he sees something staring at him from the bushes.

‘What are you looking at?’ he growls at it. The brown eyes in the brush blink once at him. In warning, he pushes the wind at the bush, rattling the branches until the creature leaps out from behind it, tail swishing. Yuri almost dismisses it immediately as just a wild animal until he realises it isn’t _a_ tail; it’s _seven_. There’s a blue tint to the black in its fur, the red more vibrant than normal. The fox blinks at him again and Yuri pushes himself into a sitting position, narrowing his eyes at it.

‘You’re in the wrong forest,’ he accuses it. ‘Which means you must be the fox that tells riddles, huh?’

The fox sits down gracefully, tails still swishing along the ground. Yuri flicks a gust at it, ruffling its fur but earning only an ear-twitch for his troubles.

‘Moron,’ he says with great disdain, and stalks past it. Fallen twigs and dead leaves crackle under his feet as he sweeps by.

‘You’re the wind spirit, Yuri,’ a male voice pipes up, slightly unsure. Yuri whirls, a snarl on his lips, but the fox is gone; in its place, a spirit in the shape of a young man, older and taller in appearance than Yuri, with dark hair and no confidence to his stance. He dips forward slightly. ‘My name is Yuuri, too. I’ve heard about you.’

‘Hard not to,’ Yuri shoots back. ‘These are my woods.’ He glares.

‘Oh, sorry.’ Yuuri chews on his bottom lip. ‘I was looking for you. I… just thought you might appreciate a challenge?’

‘A challenge?’ Yuri bares his teeth at the fox spirit. ‘For what?’

‘I’m waiting for someone,’ Yuuri says, and there’s something off about that statement, something that doesn’t fit with wide brown eyes cast at the ground and the slope of his shoulders. ‘He lives in the kingdom to the north. If I win, I stay, and you let him pass. If you win, I’ll go.’

‘But I still let him pass,’ Yuri finishes, cottoning on.

Yuuri smiles shyly at him. ‘Please?’

‘No,’ Yuri snaps immediately. ‘I don’t do favours. There’s only room for one Yuri here, got it? So go home.’ And he shoves with the wind. Yuuri stumbles back two steps, but the root Yuri’d intended to trip him over is suddenly not there, and he finds his footing.

‘What, _really?_ ’Yuri demands. ‘This loser?’

The trees rustle, whispering the forest’s intent. Yes, this loser. Yuri could probably blow at him and knock him over like a dead tree. Pick him up on a breeze and fling him out of the woods to the south and savagely take every man who so much as set a toe off the path. But okay, whatever, Yuri does what the forest wants.

Dammit.

‘Fine,’ he says, and sits down in the air, crossing both his legs and his arms. ‘What kind of challenge?

And there: Yuuri tilts his head a little, a hint of a smile on his lips and the lick of flames deep within his eyes. ( _Liar,_ the wind says. Yuri is mildly impressed.)

‘Rich men crave it,’ Yuuri says. ‘The wise know it. The poor have need of it, and kind souls show it.’

Yuri blinks at him.

‘No? How about this.’ Yuri moves closer, the picture of wily grace. ‘Soft as flowers, sharp with sorrow, sweet as honey, gone tomorrow.’

(Honey on his lips, dripping from his fingers, Otabek’s eyes fixed on him and him alone, no dancing, Otabek does not covet)

Yuri doesn't know. He says nothing.

‘Still?’ Yuuri stops just in front of Yuri, a brow raised. ‘As this life of mine is temporary, it craves an infinite kindness. At the end, I hear the voice of imminent freedom, and I pray it is the eternal happiness.’ A breath. ‘What is it?’

Eternal happiness? Infinite kindness? Nonexistent, if Yuri was writing these stupid riddles. Instead of trying to solve this nonsense, he scans the fox’s face: Clever, yes, and beautiful in the way of sleek, enchanted forest creatures. But there is something there, something Yuri recognises and sees on the faces of men who pass through the woods and do not look at him. He knows the name of it. What is it?

Yuri grits his teeth. ‘I don't know.’ He takes a breath, slow and steady, but it does not calm his fury over being beaten at a stupid word game. How is this so hard? Dammit. ‘I concede.’

Yuuri sighs his quiet relief, his shoulders relaxing, and he steps back with a small bow. ‘Thank you, Yuri,’ he says. ‘Soon, I will come to you with him. You will know.’

When Yuuri turns, Yuri kicks at his back, flailing angrily in silence.

What do men who don't look at Yuri have? When does Yuri require trickery to steal? What is eternal happiness?

‘You came all this way for a man,’ Yuri says aloud. ‘What stupid reason could you have for that?’

Yuuri turns back, his eyes glimmering. ‘Word travels on the wind,’ he says, and Yuri makes a face at him. ‘Faerie blood on a man’s throne. It reminded me of someone. I have to see for myself.’

Yuri frowns at him, considering. And then it clicks.

Fuck, he’s stupid.

‘You came all this way to see Viktor,’ Yuri says flatly. ‘The King in the North. You idiot, you didn't have to humiliate me to get free passage for that nimrod!’ Yuri stamps at the ground. ‘The forest _loves_ him! Everything in her, too! All of the pixies and rusalky and apparently even lost foxes, too!’

‘I’m not lost,’ Yuuri protests, but Yuri ignores him.

‘I live off of the energy of men,’ he spits. ‘But because this one had a faerie grandmother or something like that, I have to sit and watch as he… braids his hair by the river and dances all by himself and talks about stupid things like royal balls and wars and lo—’

Oh.

‘You’re the man,’ Yuri says, and squints at Yuuri again. ‘Or at least, he thinks you’re a man. Because that’s all they talk about.’ He sweeps his hand blindly at the forest, shaking little fae out of the bushes with indignant squawks. ‘The man who stole the king’s heart. As if that’s so interesting.’

Yuuri looks shocked and confused, a far cry from the clever and cool riddle-weaver from before. ‘He knows me?’

A beat. It sinks in slowly, like the cold.‘You’re in love with him,' Yuri realises. ‘That’s _pathetic._ Your whole game here is because you’re gone over the King in the North?’ He cackles, the sound of it twisting into the wind and shaking the leaves from the trees. ‘Hah! That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!’

Yuuri’s expression settles from the deer-in-crosshairs look to something frustratingly understanding, like suddenly he can see right through Yuri; not like he’s become the breeze, invisible but deadly, but like he’s been flayed open like a slaughtered calf. Yuri stops laughing. ‘What?’

‘You didn't know what it was,’ Yuuri says smugly, and there: Seven swishing tails behind him, fire in his eyes, lashes like smoke. ‘But it lives in you like a poison you’re trying to ignore. That’s what you think it is. Poison.’

 _Poison._ Sweet poison, threading into his very being and staying his hand. Not enchanting the food before he gifts it. The closeness, the wonder at Otabek’s kindness and chivalry, the ability to let him go. The urge to dance, to seduce, to steal, to consume, all flattened and trampled by the illness that is—

‘Fuck,’ Yuri says with great feeling, and as the fox trots off into the woods, ears pricked and red fur gleaming, Yuri swears the wily creature is smiling at him.

* * *

The leaves are fading to oranges and deep reds when Otabek returns, carrying a new blade and a branch. However, the branch doesn’t match those on the trees around them; when Yuri peers at it from the canopy level, he sees that the bark is gold, the leaves glittering jewels. ‘Is that for me?’ he says, his winds carrying his voice down to the knight and his mare. Otabek looks up at him, his steely gaze softening, and shakes his head.

‘The king requested it. It comes from the island of Hourai, far to the east. Silly, but the king is sentimental.’

‘The king is an idiot,’ Yuri snipes, and drifts down to touch it. It’s a living thing, not an ornament. _Wicked._ ‘Why?’

‘Why I got it?’ Otabek shrugs. ‘It’s valuable. I can buy my sister the black silk she’s been coveting for her birthday.’

‘No, why does he want a tree branch?’ Yuri asks.

‘Oh. He said he wanted a reminder of someone he loved, and apparently this is it.’ Otabek shakes the branch. It tinkles like the voices of the pixies as the gems clink against each other.

Yuri freezes. ‘He _what?_ Those fucking morons.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, never mind. I don’t care about them.’ Yuri shakes them off like a bad scent. ‘You’re back again.’

‘Yes. Are you sure you didn’t enchant the food?’ Otabek asks in deadpan. Yuri stares at him, caught off-guard before he beams.

‘That’s for me to know and you to find out,’ Yuri teases. ‘Tell me about the Hourai trees.’

Otabek dismounts with grace, his chainmail clinking as he settles onto his feet. ‘Of course. Just let me get Sholpan settled by the river and we can talk.’

They do talk. For hours. Yuri gets the feeling that Otabek is not used to saying so many words at once, which is another thing Yuri can add to his list of things Otabek does that doesn’t make Yuri want to throw his cold, dead body in the river: He pauses to think about his words before he says them, and so everything he says sounds like scripture. It’s made to be heard. Or maybe it’s just his voice, because Yuri thinks he could listen to it for days and not get bored. Yuri could honestly care less about the weird gold trees from Japan—they don’t help hungry insects and pixies at all, and frankly gold on plants is ugly—but the way Otabek puts them, they sound like the greatest treasure in the world. Yuri wouldn’t think it, the way the branch is lying haphazardly on the ground by Sholpan, but he could believe it if Otabek told him to do it.

That’s dangerous. Yuri is indebted to no one but the forest who created him. Never has a man held him in such rapture, even the prince of so many moons ago, but Yuri thinks that, sprawled on the riverbank and listening to Otabek earnestly speak about evading vengeful _jorougumo_ (whatever the fuck those are) as he flees with his prize, he might do anything for Otabek if only he asked for it. Anything at all. For a _man._

So, so dangerous.

‘Otabek,’ he starts, interrupting the end of the knight’s story. ‘When we first met, you asked me to dance, which was probably the stupidest thing you could have said. You knew what I was. So why did you speak to me at all?’

Otabek is quiet for a moment, considering. His eyes drift from the river to Yuri, dark and honest.

‘Yura,’ he says. Yuri jolts like he’s been struck by lightning, the tingling spreading almost painfully to his fingertips and toes. ‘I sensed a kindred soul in you. We are alike, you and I.’ His eyes drift away again. ‘It is nice, having something else to look forward to when the King summons me.’

Yuri thinks he might die.


	4. 4.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, this is where that Explicit tag kicks in. Enjoy ;)

Otabek comes to him again when the skies are clear, the bitter air mellowed to only a faint chill with the melting of the snow and the coming of spring flowers. Yuri is starving. In times of hunger, when men prefer to stay warm in their beds rather than travelling through the forest, the moon drives the weakened faerie to madness. His fingertips itch for flesh beneath them. He wants blood, to see the life seep out of his victim with every delicate footstep. It is high moon, and the forest is alive.

Yuri barely recognises his friend through the frenzied haze. It comes too late; before he knows what he’s doing, Yuri’s wrapped himself in a desperate curl around the knight, the collar of Otabek’s cloak clenched in his fingers and his mouth crushed against Yuri’s.

Otabek’s eyes fly wide open. The satchel in his hand falls to the ground with a clatter, granting Yuri enough clarity to shove Otabek back before he can take the first step into that deadly dance.

He panics. He wants to do it again. ‘Shitshit _shit,_ I didn’t do that, I didn’t think it was you, just forget it–’

Otabek, his eyes still wide, lets out a strained laugh. ‘Do you often kiss random men in the woods?’

Yuri snarls and drags his hands through his hair. ‘Yes? Sometimes? Is that a fucking problem? Sometimes it’s the fastest way to…’ He swallows, drawing his air-cloak about him protectively.

Otabek understands immediately. Yuri can tell by the look that crosses his face, a split-second of something complicated beyond his usual stoicism and the fond looks he usually offers. Anger, dread, and disgust shoot through Yuri’s haze of want-need- _feed._

‘Yura,’ Otabek says, pushing to his feet. He reaches for Yuri with hesitantly outstretched fingers, and it makes him angrier.

‘Don't touch me!’ Yuri snaps. Otabek’s hand drops to his side.

‘You’re hurting,’ Otabek retorts, his voice low. He takes another step forwards. ‘Let me help you, please.’

‘That’s not your fucking job,’ Yuri says, but he doesn't stop Otabek from tugging him into an embrace, this time. Otabek’s heart beats steadily in his chest, strong and heady.

‘It is, a bit,’ Otabek says wryly. ‘Yuri, you need to take care of yourself.’

Yuri shakes. ‘I can't. I can do better. I have to do better. This is weak.’ He looks despairingly up at his friend, his vision hazy with the desire to take from Otabek until he is cold beneath Yuri’s fingers. He recoils, ready to shift to slide out of Otabek’s stubborn grip, but suddenly finds he can't breathe, not with the sweet release of Otabek’s lips against his again, the tingle of life it sends shooting through his scalp to his fingertips.

Otabek kisses kindly. That is the only way Yuri can put it. He is soft, careful, giving Yuri every opportunity to push him away again, but Yuri finds he can't. This is like no other kiss Yuri has given, none he has received. There is no hunger to it. It’s sweet, like morning dew. Already Yuri feels his skin warm, his mind retreating from the animal instinct to hunt and kill. Otabek’s energy is vibrant like a slow-burning fire, embers crackling with little bursts of his freely-given gift.

Yuri gasps when Otabek pulls away, steps back with a little red high in his cheeks.

‘Take care of yourself, Yura,’ Otabek repeats, his voice gone a little breathy. ‘I’ll still be here when you return.’

Yuri flees.

* * *

Yuri finds Otabek again when the moon has waned, clearing Yuri’s mind of the desire to consume and take from the humans who pass through his woods. With the clarity comes the memory, and Yuri whimpers helplessly, pressing his lips against his palm in self-disgust. Ah, but it was so sweet, having Otabek’s hands on him, Otabek’s lips pressed like honey against his. Yuri shivers.

‘Yura,’ Otabek says. His voice is low, weighted heavily by something… something…

Yuri needs to know.

He turns and Otabek is there; when Otabek steps forward and tugs Yuri close, Yuri goes willingly, tips his head up and kisses him, the wild hunger of earlier replaced with a different kind of starving. Otabek’s lips part under Yuri’s insistent tongue, deepening their kiss until it burns under Yuri’s skin, simmering away and dropping low in his hips. He takes and takes, but by no means does Otabek idly stand by and let him just consume. Otabek nudges him back, authoritatively walking them back until Yuri’s back hits a broad tree. Otabek slots a knee between Yuri’s thighs and Yuri’s head falls back against the trunk with a thud and a gasp.

‘Do you do this with them?’ Otabek whispers in his ear, nipping at the lobe. ‘Let them push you up against a tree and ravish you as you pull their lives out by your fingernails? Or am I the first?’

Yuri hisses as Otabek drags his knee up, raking his nails along the knight’s shoulders in retaliation. Otabek groans. ‘What do you think, asshole?’ Yuri grits between his teeth. ‘Of course. It’s just a different kind of dancing. Maybe I’ll let you watch, sometime. Why, you jealous?’

‘Gods,’ Otabek hisses, scrapes his teeth against the soft skin of Yuri’s neck. ‘You’re so pretty when you’re angry, Yura…’

Yuri jams the heels of his palms into Otabek’s chest. ‘You bastard,’ he accuses, but the shove isn't very hard. Yuri finds himself clinging to Otabek's chemise instead, his breaths catching in his throat. ‘You asked me to dance? Fuck, the answer is _yes._ Yes, I want to dance with you, until your knees give out and your breath slips from your lungs and your heart is dripping in my hands, Otabek Altin.’

Otabek groans, low and breathy. Wraps his fingers in the spiderweb-silk of Yuri’s robes. Pulls the wispy fabric aside to mouth at Yuri’s collarbones.

‘This I freely give you,’ Otabek murmurs against Yuri’s skin. ‘You bewitching creature. You did enchant me.’

‘I didn’t,’ Yuri retorts. ‘I think I would have remembered doing that.’ He tilts Otabek’s chin up and kisses him again, hard, like the river beating against the stones, chasing the accusation and breathing in his soft sighs and harsh exhales.

Yuri’s drunk on this, on closeness for the sake of closeness, Otabek’s offer dangling above him from the day they met. He has never, ever, _ever_ been trusted by a human. Can hardly trust himself. His hands shake as he scrapes them down his sides, his wispy robes melting into the air in the path his palms draw until the thawing cold bites pleasantly into his flesh, and Otabek’s hungry fingers hover, waiting, waiting, waiting. Damn. _Damn._

‘That was an invitation, chivalrous idiot,’ Yuri says when Otabek’s fingers stay a tantalising centimetre from his skin. Still, he’s hesitant. ‘A _demand._ Touch me.’

Otabek exhales hard and does as commanded, his hands snapping to Yuri’s hips—drag down, dig into his thighs, tug him up. Yuri curls his arms around Otabek’s shoulders, crosses his ankles over Otabek’s waist. Swivels his hips.

Combusts.

Or it feels like that, anyways. Explosive. Fiery. It must be, to punch the low groan out of Otabek’s mouth like that. And _holy shit,_ it’s good.

‘Never this far,’ Yuri hisses in Otabek’s ear. ‘They die before I ever make it this far.’

‘Oh,’ is all Otabek says. He pulls back and looks at Yuri, his eyes wide and dark and his breath heavy. ‘ _Oh._ ’

Yuri feels like Otabek is rooting around inside of him, searching all of him from the inside and tugging out the swirling pit of denial and confusion. He has seen lust in the gaze of men, sees it now in the depths of Otabek’s searching eyes, but Yuri has felt lust before. Lust is the pretty ones, the ones who seem temporary as bubbles and serve their purposes quickly.

This isn’t just lust. Yuri wants Otabek to scavenge and find all of the bits and pieces Yuri never knew he had, to zip around Yuri’s lungs and sear them to brittle crisps. To soak into his skin. Yuri wants to feel him inside, steeping him in power and energy, and to never leave his side again.

This way seems the far more appealing option. Less death, for one. More of that stupid, dopey expression on Otabek’s face, the fire-trail of his touch.

‘Down,’ Yuri commands, and Otabek obeys, his grip tight on Yuri’s thighs as he sinks to his knees. Yuri feels three sharp tugs at his scalp, bursts of pain that immediately fade to nothing as Otabek kisses him. Even under all that fabric and plate armour, Yuri can feel the shift of Otabek’s chest, hot and shivering under the swipe of his fingers. Yuri grinds forward and Otabek falls back, holding a lapful of faerie. Still, he does not press Yuri to do anything, just meets his kisses every time and touches as demanded.

‘Stop thinking,’ Yuri insists, unclasping Otabek’s cloak. It falls heavily to the cold forest floor. ‘I want you to give in.’

‘I shouldn’t,’ Otabek whispers.

‘You _should,_ ’ Yuri says. He deftly undoes the buckles to Otabek’s armour, tugging the metal away. Otabek hisses when Yuri’s cold fingers slip up his sides, and finally, he lets go of Yuri and takes off his chemise.

They pause, Yuri’s palms flat against Otabek’s burning chest, Otabek’s hands back at Yuri’s waist. The moment hangs between them, the last branch of escape.

So Yuri tells him the truth.

‘I could kill you,’ he says shakily, ‘and not mean to do it. I’ve done that before. Killed people by accident.’ He leans forward. He’s shaking. ‘There was a prince, once. I only knew him a few days, but I wanted to try it, and he was so damn eager.’ His fingers tense on Otabek’s chest. ‘I’m better now. But I could still kill you.’

Otabek raises his thumb to Yuri’s lips and drags it down. Yuri shivers.

‘I know,’ Otabek whispers.

Yuri swallows at that. ‘Run,’ he suggests.

Otabek smirks, a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. ‘Never,’ he answers. ‘Not from you.’

Okay. Okay.

Yuri stops to admire him, the whorls of dark hair dipping down into his trousers, the bunch and release of his muscles, the rise and fall of his chest. Yuri’s breath is caught in his throat. How ironic, a wind spirit who’s forgotten how to breathe.

Then he finds it again.

‘I’m going to unravel you,’ Yuri threatens. He rocks back and Otabek exhales, hard, his fingers digging into Yuri waist. Polite to the end, isn’t he? Yuri reaches back, wraps his fingers around Otabek’s wrist, and shoves his hand down. ‘I’m going to pull you to pieces. You’ll disintegrate in my hands _,_ Otabek, and you’ll enjoy every second of it—’

‘Yura,’ Otabek pants, and Yuri shuts up because Otabek sits up, slides his fingers into Yuri’s hair, and tugs. Yuri tilts his chin up and lets Otabek mouth his way down his jaw, his throat, drag his tongue over a nipple. Yuri jolts, his hips snapping forward, because holy _hells,_ and Otabek’s breath hitches, hissing past his teeth. After that, it’s less of a decision and more of an imperative to hook his arm around the back of Otabek’s neck and grind down again. Under him, Otabek is a firepit, a stone on a sunny day, near hot enough to burn him but not quite enough to leave a scar. Instead, the heat swirls into Yuri’s abdomen, condensing down to a white-hot iron prod. It’s the kind of heat that sears and sizzles when it touches fae skin, except this is far too nice to be so horrible.

Otabek shifts, throwing his weight and catching Yuri off-guard as the knight deftly rolls them, pressing Yuri back into the leaves as he trails his mouth lower. Yuri can’t help but stare as Otabek repeats the fluttering kisses, his blunt nails scraping against Yuri’s ribs, down his sides, up his thighs. ‘What are you—’

Yuri cuts off with a high whine when Otabek ghosts a hot, wet breath over the head of his cock, his eyes flicking up to Yuri’s. Gauging. Considering. Then he pushes Yuri’s legs up and neatly slides his shoulders under them, taking Yuri into his mouth before he can squirm too much. Immediately, Yuri slaps a hand to his mouth, biting into the flesh of his own palm, because

Fuck. _Fuck._

The other goes to the longer hair on the top of Otabek’s head, digging into the coarse strands. Otabek groans, which makes Yuri arch sharply at the vibration and stifle embarrassing noises against his palm. Virtuous knight his damn _ass_. That’s not the tongue of someone who hasn’t practiced before. But Yuri doesn’t have the time nor the willpower to be angry or jealous about it, not when it’s hot and wet and doing wicked things to him. Hell, he’s supposed to be the wicked one, but Otabek’s mouth, his hands, his muffled _voice_ in low moans has reduced Yuri to a quivering mess.

For one heart-stoppingly disappointing moment, Otabek pulls off panting, his eyes flickering back up to Yuri’s. ‘I want to hear you,’ Otabek says, in the same breathy way he promised _I’ll still be here._ ‘Don’t hide from me.’

How can Yuri deny a request like that?

Hyperaware of how silent the forest has gone, Yuri drops his hand into the leaves, crinkling them into his palm as Otabek returns, setting a steady, maddening rhythm that has Yuri whimpering like a wolf pup. He screws his eyes shut, not trusting himself to look again, not when he feels like he’s going to burst into a million pieces any second and flutter back down to the ground like fresh snow. He’s going to explode, he’s going to, to shatter like ice, to whirl into a hurricane, to–

Otabek must understand what he’s trying to communicate with failed words wrapped in high moans because he sucks _harder._ He presses bruises into Yuri's hips, anchoring him as that horrible-fantastic, earth-shaking buildup low in his abdomen rips through the rest of him, curving his spine and digging his fingers like claws into the hard soil.

It’s flying as high as he can go and dropping all the way back down to the earth, propelling himself through the river at breakneck speeds, and blowing sparks from lightning into blazing wildfires all at once. Like riding rapids until they fade into calm eddies, except it’s Otabek’s too-hot mouth and not the white froth of churning water that wrings him out and leaves him gasping for his precious air on the dead leaves.

Yuri thinks there must be something wrong with him. He feels unmoored, half a step removed from his own body, wisps of air disconnected from the loose-limbed, messy creature he is. Everything settles around him as Otabek rolls onto his back, chest heaving, a deep flush starting at his cheekbones and spread all the way down his chest. Yuri remembers how to talk twenty seconds later. He gathers his strength and heaves himself upright to look down at Otabek. On a whim, he drops a hand down onto the red and Otabek shudders.

‘Let me,’ he says, his voice hoarse.

Otabek somehow goes redder.

‘No need,’ Otabek says, his voice low and gravelly and a little embarrassed. ‘It’s taken care of.’ He glances up. ‘That was about you.’

If possible, yes, Yuri thinks he’d be on fire.

‘You’re fucking insane,’ Yuri says thickly. ‘No one told me heroes were so stupid.’

‘You clearly haven’t met enough heroes,’ Otabek returns. ‘We do a lot of stupid things. Journeying all the way to Japan for a tree branch for an excuse to come see their faerie friends in the forest, for example.’

Yuri blinks. ‘You did that for me?’

Otabek lazily reaches over and runs his fingers lightly over the outside of Yuri’s thigh. Yuri shivers. ‘I’d do a lot of things for you, Yura.’

Yuri has to look away. It’s far too much to be looking Otabek in the eyes right now, so he instead settles on the tree. Then he squints, because there’s something gold and glittering caught on the bark. As he crawls closer, his winds weaving his robes from the air and draping them haphazardly around him, he sees that they’re three strands of his hair. Something’s not right about that, seeing his hair not on his head, but that’s stupid. It’s just hair. He tugs the strands away from the bark and turns back to Otabek, who’s sat up to watch him.

‘Look at this,’ Yuri accuses. ‘Look what you did, asshole.’

Otabek blinks. ‘I’m… sorry?’

‘You should be,’ Yuri says, low and threatening. They sit like that, staring at each other, until Yuri feels the grin crack apart his angry mask and he starts laughing.

Otabek watches with amusement as Yuri slips onto his winds, zipping around and whooping. Once that’s mostly out of his system, he drifts back down, beaming wider than he thinks he’s ever smiled. Ever.

‘Here,’ he says, holding out the hair between his fingers. ‘Hold out your wrist.’

Otabek obeys, and Yuri takes the leather cord wrapped around it, winding the strands of hair in a tight weave. It glints like spun gold against the dark leather.

‘There,’ Yuri says when he’s satisfied, letting it go. ‘Now you’re bound to me.’ Otabek’s eyes whip up to his, alarmed, and Yuri snorts. ‘Ha! The look on your face! I’m kidding.’

‘You’d better be,’ Otabek threatens.

Yuri shrugs. ‘I dunno if it’ll do anything. I’ve never lost hair before, though.’ He touches his scalp where he remembers the sharp tugging sensation. ‘If anything, looking at it will remind you that you slept with the wind faerie of the forest and lived to tell the tale.’ Yuri creeps closer, winding himself around Otabek. Otabek’s eyelids flutter shut. ‘You’re mine anyways. Got it? My dumb knight.’

Otabek humours him by not protesting the insult. And anyways, it’s not like Yuri feels any less dumb. But being with Otabek makes him feel less like the wind spirit of the woods and more like Yuri. If being dumb is the price to pay, then so fucking be it.


	5. 5.

It doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t even happen when Otabek leaves, days later, his satchel re-tied and the promise of a swift return dripping from his swollen lips, a blush high on his golden cheeks.

No. It happens slowly, like a slow poisoning of the river. Yuri starts noticing it when it becomes harder to fly. The air itself seems thicker around him, like he’s drifting against the river current instead. Everything is sluggish, his body and winds reacting a second too late to his thoughts. And then one day, he suddenly can't keep himself afloat, tumbling down through the trees and hitting the ground hard. A leshy lifts his head from the bushes to peer curiously at him, but Yuri doesn't have the energy to be angry about it, not when his whole body feels like it’s made of stone.

 _Are you alright?_ his little wind asks him, weaving past his ear. Yuri opens his mouth to say yes, he’s _fine_ , shut up, but no sound comes out. His hand flies to his throat in a panic. Around him, the forest shifts, the birds going quiet and the leaves stilling of their own accord. Yuri tries to find his voice for what seems like hours, days, _years_ before he forces the words out of his throat.

‘What’s happening to me?’ he whispers hoarsely. His skin looks less glowy-pale and more like pressed ashes when he holds up his shaking hand to the sunlight. Wincing with the pain of his landing, he drags himself to a puddle that can't seem to decide whether or not to freeze and sees that his eyes have dulled considerably, and he looks far too solid for comfort. Even his robes, which usually float around him, drag through the dirt.

The forest rustles uncertainly. Her face appears in the puddle a moment, sharp green eyes filled with concern as she examines him. Then a wolf howls in the distance and she looks away from him, her gaze hardening.

 _Your hair,_ the breeze translates, and Yuri touches the place where their careless sex led to it snagging on the tree. _The human plucked it from your head._

Yuri scowls and hits the puddle, scattering the forest’s face. When it settles, she’s gone, but everything around him seems restless still.

 _You’re lucky it wasn't more,_ the wind relays. _If he’d taken your skin, you’d be a slave to his whims._

Yuri sputters indignantly. ‘He wouldn't do that. He’s _Otabek.’_

The ground rocks under him, sending him sprawling. _You shouldn't have given it to him!_ The forest scolds through his wind’s voice. _He tricked you, foolish, naïve child! Look at you! You’ll recover when he dies and no sooner, for you have given him a piece of your being. You disappoint me._

Yuri, infuriated by what she’s insinuating, finds the strength to shove himself to his feet. ‘It was freely given for his trust,’ he snaps. ‘Which is more than you’ve ever earned from me.’

The forest shudders all around him, like he has reached out with his hand and slapped her. _I have lost you,_ she says mournfully.

Everything goes quiet. Not a peep out of a single creature. Not a leaf shudders. Yuri shoves himself away from the tree, stumbling like a clumsy, careless human, but not even the twigs dare to snap beneath his suddenly heavy feet. He can feel himself shaking.

‘Fine,’ he snaps into the unnerving quiet. ‘Then maybe you have, mouldy witch.’

* * *

He walks to the edge of the woods, every single eye on him as he stumbles past. There is the last tree; he grits his teeth and forces himself to get closer and closer to it, even though every part of his seemingly permanently solid, grounded body is tugging him back to the familiar depths of the forest. His nails scrape into the bark of the tree as he pulls himself to it, his robes dragging in the mud and snagging on pointed roots and branches. It’s in tatters now, but Yuri doesn't care; his eyes are on the clearing ahead, the path leading away from the trees and out towards the Northern King’s palace, glittering in the far distance.

Fuck this. Fuck whatever this is, this weakness that his forest put into him, the loophole to his existence. He’s not going to let it win. He’s _not._ To rip his identity away from him for daring to fall in lo— lo… Shit, he can’t even think the word. It’s unforgivable, regardless.

He sticks his leg out, toes pointed at the ground, hands braced on the tree. C’mon, just put it down in the grass… take the first step outside these goddamned woods… Toes in the grass, it’s not that… Hard!

He rips his foot back, stumbles into the safety of the tree cover. As the iron grip that seems to have fastened itself around all of his insides lets go, his palms hit the ground and he retches violently into the bushes. Gagging, he spits out the nasty leftovers and crudely swipes the back of his hand across his mouth, trembling like a leaf. Aghast, he stares at the mess before he kicks a spray of dirt over it, defeated.

He’s never even had the ability to do that. Never been weak enough to expel anything so crudely from his body. Human energy doesn’t work like that, and it’s not like he’s ever eaten enough actual food for it to matter.

He feels small. Insignificant. Like there was a competition here, somewhere, Yuri versus time, his foolishness against the relentless push of fate. Weakness does not suit him, and yet here he is, reduced to… whatever the fuck this is.

He reaches out his trembling fingers to the air, thinking that the only comfort in this is that his winds are within reach, if not to let him ride them away, than to at least blow cool air against his skin. But all that arrives when he reaches for it is a thin, shaky breeze that fades almost immediately, reluctant to come to his call.

A horrible, animal sound rips itself out his throat as he buries his fingers in his hair, feeling half-feral in his fear and anger. The harsh reality of it weighs like a boulder, holding him down and leaving him vulnerable.

He finds the puddle again, smaller and with less ice to it, and stares at himself again. There’s no hunter left in him, even when he bares sharp teeth at his reflection and it scowls back at him, reassuringly non-human in the cast of his eyes and the point of his ears, the wildness in his expression. But that’s all; the rest of him looks like a ghost, a skeleton wrapped in ashy skin, half-dead and feral with it. He looks hunted.

Yuri does not notice when Sholpan approaches, or when Otabek’s boots hit the forest floor, or when the swish of his heavy cloak around his ankles grows a little louder as he steps closer. He flinches at the touch of fingers to his shoulder, snarling, and whirls to see Otabek withdrawing his hand hesitantly. Otabek’s eyes are wide with shock, but they peer right through Yuri with the same soul-searing intensity they’ve always held. Yuri feels like he’s being flayed open on the spot with those eyes. Prey, indeed. Without thinking about it, he hides his face behind his tattered sleeve. Faded beauty means nothing, he thinks bitterly.

Something clatters against the forest floor and Yuri peeks through the delicate spider-silk to see Otabek on his knees, his sword discarded to the side. He does not reach out again. ‘Yura,’ he murmurs, voice of terrible, gentle rose petals pricked with thorns. Yuri zeroes in on the contrasting threads of gold of Otabek’s bracelet and feels numbness spread through him like snowmelt. ‘What happened to you?’

Maybe, just maybe, the forest was right.

‘Don’t,’ Yuri says, and winces at the crack of his voice. ‘This is because of _you._ You… you played me for a damn fool, didn’t you? You’re a knight. No, worse!’ He spits at the ground. ‘You’re a _hero._ Who sent you to tame me?’

Otabek swallows. ‘I don’t understand.’

Yuri scoffs, dropping his hand to his lap. ‘Don’t understand my _ass._ You’ve come to check if you did your job.’

Yuri watches as the understanding strikes Otabek like he’d been punched, making the knight sway on his knees in staggering surprise. ‘You think I–?’

‘You must have!’ Yuri accuses. ‘And I fell for it like a fucking idiot. I _handed_ it to you. I tied it around your wrist myself.’

Otabek’s hand flies to the bracelet.

‘Was this a game to you? Because I’d get it if it was. Payback for all of the games I’ve played.’ Yuri bares his teeth at Otabek. ‘But I thought… I thought you were…’

 _Different,_ he wants to say, but something holds him back. There’s something in Otabek’s expression that holds Yuri’s silvery, biting tongue, keeping it from cutting deeper. Water in the stoic knight’s eyes. Like morning dew, except that morning dew does not belong in the eyes of someone like Otabek. As he watches, Otabek rips the bracelet from his wrist, holding it out to Yuri like it burns to hold. Yuri stares before he reaches out to take it with trembling fingers, holding his plucked hair with disbelief.

‘You’re weeping for me,’ Yuri says dumbly. He does not back up.

‘I did this to you?’ Otabek asks, stricken.

Morning dew does not belong in the eyes of Otabek Altin, but, as if to be contrary, it finds a home in Yuri’s, sending the world into wavering, blurry focus. The ice is melting within him, and with it comes reason through the pain. Yuri went to him because he was considerate, kind, dignified; he stayed because Otabek was honest. Otabek’s question is honest, which means that his horror is also honest. _He didn’t know,_ something sings within Yuri, even as the whole world is crashing down around him. _He didn’t know, he didn’t know…_

When Yuri drops the bracelet into his lap and reaches for him, Otabek takes his hand and pulls him close. He smells like leather and sweat and spices, like the road that leads off where Yuri cannot go and the promise to always come back. Otabek holds him like he could break apart in his arms. Yuri would protest, but he’s not entirely sure he won’t. In contrast, Yuri clings to Otabek like he is the tree, rooted to the ground, and Yuri is the leaf that will blow away on the wind grown feeble and useless.

‘We’ll fix this,’ Otabek says. His voice wavers just a little. ‘On my honour, I promise this. We will find your strength again.’

Yuri sniffles. ‘You’d go through all that trouble for a murderous spirit in the faerie woods?’

Otabek releases him, brushing the hair out of Yuri’s face with extreme care, his thumbs swiping at the moisture wetting his cheeks.

‘Of course,’ he says firmly. ‘You’re my best friend. Do you trust me, now?’

And Yuri, against the grain of his very being, every shred of his faerie blood, does.

‘Then come with me,’ Otabek urges. ‘Come with me to the Court in the North. Let me wrap you in furs and feed you hot broth. After all I've done for the King, the least he can do is allow me to search his libraries for the answer.’

Yuri looks up at him and sees his great intensity, the conviction of a young man who would ride around the world and back to right a wrong. A wrong that Yuri has given him to fix, he thinks dully. The wrong of ignorance and frivolity and being just a little selfish for only a moment. It’s utterly unfair. It’s bullshit. Guilt pierces him like a thousand thorns, tearing open his skin to let his insides seep from him like water.

‘I can't,’ he says.

Otabek blinks. ‘Then to Almaty. It is no warmer, but King Viktor’s reach does not extend so far. The people of my home are merchants, nomads resting to trade, travellers who carry the secrets of the world on their tongues. Surely there must be—’

‘No, Otabek,’ Yuri interrupts, ‘I _can’t._ I can’t leave the woods.’ He digs his fingertips into the dirt. ‘I’ve tried, but I’m tethered to it.’

Otabek digests that. ‘You mean to say you’ve never left?’

Yuri scoffs. ‘Don't you think if I could, I would have left already? This is my home, but after so long everything begins to seem… small. And now I just feel smaller.’ And then, because it rips at him like it’s trying to burst from his skin, he murmurs, ‘I cannot feel my winds anymore.’

Otabek stiffens across from him. Then, slowly, he pushes himself to his feet, looking around with his sweeping gaze.

‘What-’

‘Shh,’ Otabek hushes, alert. Then he touches his finger to his tongue and holds it up, waiting for something. It doesn't come.

‘No wind at all,’ he murmurs.

Yuri pushes himself up, too, and stands as tall as he can, grasping for threads that don't obey. Not a strand of his hair twitches in the air. Nothing. Unease settles deep in his bones as the wind’s absence, unnoticed in his despair, becomes all he can notice..

In a whirl, Otabek spins back to him. ‘Take my energy,’ he says firmly, holding out his hand in urgent invitation. ‘Without the winds, the weather will not move in the forest, nor the surrounding kingdoms. No movement condemns any place where a storm forms to drown in snow or rain, and those without to grow dry and barren.’

Yuri recoils regardless. When has he ever cared about people? Men have only ever been playthings and food, women and children pointless accessories to their hapless companions. The one person he thinks he could stand in the entire world stands in front of him, offering him death. Like fucking hell he’s going to—

Otabek takes his hand, wrapping Yuri’s cold hand in his warm fingers and pulling him flush to his chest. The other settles between his shoulder blades, pressed warm and flat and pulsing with life against the thin fabric. Yuri inhales sharply, but Otabek’s eyes are filled with determination, not lust, boring into him strong enough to drive holes through him.

‘You are my greatest friend,’ Otabek says solemnly, ‘and I would not wish to part from you for the world. But my duty to my people and to the people of the North comes above myself.’ He takes a deep breath. It does not waver. ‘Do you want to dance, Yura?’

‘No,’ Yuri says vehemently, but his body takes the first step into the death-dance before he can think to stop it. There’s old magic in this, and Yuri feels twinges of it roll through him as he automatically draws up onto his toes, though it hurts far more now than it ever did before.

The steps of it are simple, and though all of Yuri’s power seems to have been sucked out of him, something remains in its place, guiding ( _forcing_ ) him in the delicate and graceful movements of the spirit-waltz. Otabek’s grip tightens around Yuri’s hand, but as Yuri leads the dance, he feels nothing. Always at this point is there some resurgence of power into Yuri’s veins, the curl of his little winds around his wrists and ankles, the slow droop of his unfortunate partner’s eyelids. But Otabek is as focused and intense as ever, solid and warm and _alive_ under Yuri’s fingertips, and Yuri is beginning to tire, stumbling over himself until he trips into Otabek’s chest. He pushes himself back upright, tired and embarrassed and thrilled all the same.

‘It’s not working,’ he says, managing to sound frustrated yet failing to hide his relief. ‘I don't understand, it’s never failed before…’

Otabek matches his frustrated tone with an impatient groan of his own, the beginning tendrils of fear creeping into his voice.

‘You trust me,’ Otabek says.

It’s not a question. ‘Yes,’ Yuri affirms anyways.

Otabek tilts Yuri’s chin up and kisses him as he did when Yuri was starving, half-mad with the desire to feed. It’s a gift, a gentle thing that betrays Otabek’s strength and vitality all at once, but Yuri’s body does not take to it, reaching for the life force and rejecting it at the barrier of his lips. Yuri pushes away, disconcerted and dizzy with it.

‘Did it work?’ Otabek asks, his hands hovering uncertainly before him. Yuri shakes his head, gritting his teeth.

‘It didn't. You know what it feels like.’

Otabek huffs in frustration. ‘We’ll find a way,’ he repeats, picking up his sword and shoving it into the scabbard strapped to Sholpan’s side. He holds his hand out to Yuri. ‘I must make camp for the night and you must rest. In the morning, we will decide what to do.’

Sholpan and Yuri exchange a wary glance. The mare looks vehemently opposed to allowing Yuri too close, and though Yuri admires the beast’s colouring and grace, horses have been claimed by men, and she stinks of domesticity. But Otabek’s gaze is expectant, so Yuri allows himself to be hoisted up onto her back. Otabek strokes her neck, murmuring to her in a low and melodic tongue that Yuri has never heard before until she settles. Smoothly, Otabek pulls himself up behind Yuri, bracketing him with his arms to hold onto the horse’s reins and spur her forward. In his hands, Yuri grips onto the bracelet, the lost strands of his hair glimmering in the fading sunlight and pulsing with magic under his touch. Fuck, if he could just shove them back into his scalp and forget about this.

Without really meaning to, Yuri guides them to the place where they first met, leaping off of Sholpan to the visible relaxation of both. As Otabek binds her to a tree by the riverside, Yuri approaches the log where he once sat, listening to Otabek’s stories as the fire crackled and glowed at their feet. He presses his palm to it and feels echoes of that first night in the forest’s memory, embers dancing behind his closed eyelids.

When he opens them again, Otabek has struck a fire anew, the tiny flames creeping over gathered wood and lighting the dry spring moss in puffs of smoke. The sparks dance straight up into the air in the absence of the wind, winking out when they fly too high. Yuri slides down to the ground, the warmth of the flames enticing when it has never been so before. But Yuri is still cold, his insides carved out into nothingness and filled only with the frigid air. Wordlessly, Otabek slides closer, his armour shifting as he settles beside Yuri and watches the flames for some unknown sign.

‘How do you normally sleep?’ Otabek asks eventually. Yuri huffs.

‘I don't. But I lounge in the trees to rest.’ He looks wistfully up at the thinnest branches. ‘But I don't want to fall out and crack my head open, because that’d be just my luck.’

Otabek opens his bag and fishes out a bundle from his saddlebags, tying it to a stick and holding it close to the flames. When he determines it to be warm enough, he sets it at their feet and untied it, letting the fabric fall open to reveal a pile of grain, vegetables, and small pieces of browned meat.

‘Pilaf,’ Otabek explains at Yuri’s questioning look. ‘I took some from the inn where I rested last night.’ He takes some between his gloved fingers and show Yuri how to eat it. Treacherously, Yuri’s eyes follow the bob of his throats as he swallows. ‘You must eat, Yura. Keep your mind sharp for the coming dawn.’

Yuri eyes it suspiciously. ‘There’s very little,’ he notes, but he’s already reaching for it, holding the delicate grain as Otabek demonstrated and laying it on his tongue. It’s not as simple as biting into a fruit, nor as hearty as biting directly into fresh meat, but it calms the aching in his belly.

‘If I didn't know better,’ Otabek murmurs as they eat, ‘I would suspect you are becoming human.’

Alarmed, Yuri drops his handful, scattering the grain over his knees. ‘I’m _what?!_ ’

Otabek shrugs. ‘You’re eating for sustenance rather than pleasure now. You cannot take power from me as you once could. When I touch you-’ he does, the leather seam over his thumb scraping against Yuri’s cheek, ‘you feel more solid to me. It is only this and this,’ he gestures to the points of Yuri’s ears, then his eyes, ‘that say any different.’

Horror at that doesn't come like fear, coursing through his veins like ice water. Instead it’s numbing, seeping the feeling out of his fingertips and his toes. Just thinking about the possibility that Otabek could be right makes Yuri want to throw up again, which only proves the point even further.

How fucking cruel.

‘Yura,’ Otabek murmurs, yanking Yuri from a dark spiral of despair. ‘Don't fret too much. I keep my word.’ The corner of his mouth quirks slightly. ‘I can say that you would be a stunning human, if no solution were to be found. There are women and men alike in this world who would murder for your beauty, your dignity.’

Yuri feels an odd mix of pride and disgust at that, shoving Otabek with his shoulder. ‘Dignity. Don't mock me.’

Otabek shrugs. ‘I don't lie very often. Why should I lie to you now?’

‘Please. I'm a fucking mess.’ Yuri scrubs a hand over his face.

‘Mm, yes,’ Otabek agrees. ‘You have been dealt a hand that few would find easy to handle. Yet here you are. Fire in your eyes. You’re still fighting.’ His eyes avert to the ground. ‘I am truly sorry. It was a lapse in my judgement that brought you to this point.’

Yuri finds that he cannot answer that immediately, staring into the flames instead. It’s almost soothing, this ebb and flow of destruction. Grace in licks of fire, the consumption of the dead. He imagines that is what it feels like to be truly clean. ‘Do you regret it?’

Otabek takes a moment to answer. ‘I regret that I have caused you harm,’ he says slowly. Yuri feels Otabek's eyes burning into his skin. ‘But I do not regret that I could show you that your trust in me was valid. And that it gave you pleasure. I imagine that there is some bitterness locked away in you after so many years of hunting the people who intend to pass through to places you cannot go. If I lessened that, then I am glad.’

Great, now Yuri’s crying again. Fuck. ‘If anything, I caused my own pain,’ he says begrudgingly. ‘What did you say you were, eight-and-ten?’

‘Nine, this past autumn,’ Otabek corrects.

‘Fuck, nine-and-ten. But the things you say and the way they spill from your lips make me think of old spirits.’ Yuri huffs past his tears. ‘You carry a lot of weight. Let some of it go.’

Otabek offers him a little smile, one that goes beyond little twitches of the lips into something genuine and startlingly young. ‘A heart is a heavy thing,’ he says, as if he were a thousand years old. ‘I find that many people have chosen to abandon theirs for the weight of it. But I’d like to keep mine close. Let it bleed, if I must, but never let it go.’

The two of them fall silent. The words feel branded into Yuri’s skin, as if he has somehow been tamed by them. (It feels like sacrilege to even think so, and immediately he knows that the thought is a false one. Close to the truth, yes, but Otabek is right; fire still burns brightly within him). Without thinking about it, Yuri finds that his hand has crept to his breast, pressed flat against the steady flutter of a thing he’d always thought to be silent. It is like a sacred revelation, to feel it beating in his chest.

How… human, indeed.

‘Do _you_ regret it?’ Otabek asks softly. And even weakened as Yuri is, all that makes him fae seemingly dissipated into thin air, he finds that the answer comes immediately.

‘No, of course I fucking don't.’ He offers Otabek a watery smile. ‘Anything to make life a little spicier, hah?’

That earns him a low chuckle.

‘Rest,’ Otabek says firmly, shaking Yuri from his trance. ‘Clear minds, remember?’ He gestures to the bedroll pressed up by the log. ‘It’s yours, if you think you can sleep.’

Cautiously, Yuri approaches the cloth, settling down on it and watching Otabek shift the coals around on the flames. His eyes dart around the woods, watching for threats hidden in the lengthening shadows until Yuri impatiently puts a hand on his leg.

‘I’m still cold,’ he lies. It gets Otabek to look down, at least, fighting a battle Yuri can almost watch for himself within the knight’s expressive eyes. Finally, he sighs and kneels beside Yuri, removing his cloak and throwing it over him. Yuri persists until Otabek sits to tend the fire at his side. Inexplicably, though the cool metal of his armour presses into Yuri’s side, Yuri is warmer. He buries his nose in Otabek’s cloak, smells sweat and spices and pine trees, and thinks of nothing but the summer breeze whispering in his ear and promising its swift return.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahaha I almost forgot to post this. University's hard, y'all.


	6. 6.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the tags.

Whatever this is must not be sleep, because Yuri is well aware of everything that’s going on around him: The whisper of animals and spirits moving around in the trees, the swish of Sholpan’s tail as she flicks insects away from her flank, the rise and fall of Otabek’s chest beside him, the soft huffs of his breath, the dwindling heat of the dying fire. Somewhere in this half-awareness, he’s crept closer to Otabek’s side, stealing heat from him like the plants drink in sunlight.

He mumbles in protest when Otabek wakes, pushing him aside into the dirt as he rolls to his feet. “The fuck–”

Otabek shushes him. Yuri hears the scrape of Otabek’s blade against the scabbard and opens his eyes to see him in a crouch, listening. And now that Yuri’s more alert, he can hear it too: Voices, far away in the woods. Male laughter. Whimpering. Footsteps growing louder and louder. And if he squints, the faraway flicker of campfire light.

‘Bandits,’ Otabek murmurs.

A surge of red-hot anger jolts through Yuri just under his skin, threatening to light him on fire. He rolls to his feet, forgetting until his toes hit the cold, hard ground that he can’t just fly off and attack, as he always has.

‘Wait here,’ Otabek says. He tugs a dagger out from the belt looped over the roots of the log and presses it into Yuri’s hands. ‘I bet you’re a vicious thing yet, Yura, but I hope you won’t need this.’

The metal does not burn in Yuri’s hands. Silver, then, or some other element from the earth that would suit a knight but not immediately rend the skin from any fae who touched it. Such a small thing to think of, and yet.

It only registers that Otabek’s chestplates are still lying by the fire when he disappears, sword flashing in the flickerlight. Yuri can barely see a thing beyond the reach of the dying campfire and the pinprick of light in the distance, but he goes anyways, tripping over stones and low bushes and tangling his sleeves in brambles. With a frustrated snarl, he slashes the dagger through the delicate fabric, leaving the silk in the branches. His steps become hastier when a shout goes up among the bandits and the distinct clash of swords disturbs the calm serenity of the forest. Glittering eyes open amongst the closed, budding flowers and the tree bark. In the darkness, a few of the drowsy pixies think to light the way for him, and he stops tripping so much, though his palms and knees still bear the scratches and scrapes welling with silvery-red blood. It seems like the forest is trying to stop him, making his path difficult and complicated, which doesn’t make any fucking sense—

A large arm comes around his neck, rancid breath in his ear, and Yuri doesn't think beyond that, just stabs backwards and slashes the soft throat before it can allow the scream, blood gurgling in his mouth. The bandit drops, making horrible, wet noises that sound like music to Yuri’s ears, but his life-blood does nothing but stain white fabric and golden hair. No matter. Yuri runs.

There are women in that camp, huddled in a group with their wrists bound and their lips pressed together, white with fear. Blood sinking into the dirt, hissing on the fire, stacks of coins and goods beside wagons. Dead men lay here and there, but the swords in the woods still clash, dissonant in the air. When the woman see him, they scream; if he were them, he too would scream at the sight of him, bloodstained faerie with wild eyes. Men shout in the woods, turning back to the camp; Yuri runs for the conflict.

He catches glimpses of the fight in the pixie-light, and by all rights, it should have ended quickly. Where the bandits are crude, Otabek is elegant; where they brash, he is calculating; where untrained, he is a master. Nine-and-ten, Yuri thinks, but also: Hero.

It should have been won in moments, but the grass knots under Otabek’s boots and lays flat for the remaining bandits, vines creeping and tangling and tripping him. Him and _Yuri,_ he realises too late, slashing at the vines winding ‘round his ankles and failing to cut deep enough. Mouldy damned fucking witch—

Yuri’s breath fails him here as he tries to call out a warning, expended on his race to the makeshift arena. Desperately, he drops to his stomach, speaking in hoarse, screaming whispers to the pixie-lights.

But it is not enough.

Death to him used to be something elegant and exciting. Though he had done it for sun-cycles to the hundreds, maybe even thousands, there was always something alluring to the gasp of a man’s last breath, the glimmer of awareness in his eyes settling to glassy nothing.

From the man unto Yuri. Flesh and bone to food for rusalky and the grateful beasts prowling the riverbank.  Dirty deaths are new, dripping from his fingertips and the blade in his white-knuckled grip in sticky, warm streams. They are still beautiful.

It’s not lovely to hear _his_ blood drip to the forest floor, hot on the tips of her broken and brittle roots. Yuri watches his eyes turn to the wood at his chest, wide with shock and pain.

It’s not music to hear _his_ rattling breath, the wet surprise of someone who expected it to come, if anywhere, from the end of a sword or the press of Yuri’s death-kiss. And he looks so terribly young, staring that death in the face, watching his own life slip from him in rivulets of red turned silver by the pixie-light.

It's not elegant to see _his_ resignation and acceptance and _fear_ like the shift of the sun.

Even the remaining bandits look shocked, the man who forced him into the sharp roots surprised to have found anything there to kill with at all.

Yuri had taken men from grief before, when they would not so much as spare him a glance to weep instead for love lost. Sometimes they’d still be holding the lost one, her palm pressed to his cheek, murmuring sweet goodbyes as she faded. Farewell, my love. Be safe. If I could die again for you, I would.

There is none of that here.

It rushes back to Yuri like lightning in reverse, filling him from the ground up in a surge of power. He gasps as it burns through him and the vines loosen, freeing him from the chains of the earth, and suddenly he is light as air, the gentle caress of his welcome winds curling around him as he melts into them. It is a flash of relief, a moment of triumph that should be liberating.

_You’ll recover when he dies and no sooner, for you have given him a piece of your being._

There are two beats of numbness, which seems a mercy. Moments where there once was briefly a heartbeat beneath his breastbone, counting out the seconds. Now there is only the quiet murmurs of victorious criminals, the whisper of the returned wind. Numbness, and then reality.

A scream rips itself from him, tears away like the long, precious golden strands between his fingers.

And again.

And again.

The winds howls with his grief, returned to the land with a violent rush that scatters the poor pixies and sends the men to their knees with the pain of it. Otabek, he wails, and the air echos it, dragging it until it is only raw, animal sound to the edges of the trees. Otabek, Otabek.

And then there is deep red rage, terrible fury that runs through him and fills the emptiness that has been hollowed out by the blood pooling beneath the fallen tree, corrosive as acid inside him. Yuri dives for the hapless fools, and once again, these deaths are not elegant.

_your heart is dripping in my hands_

His fingers are coated in life-blood, his ears ringing with the sound of choking breaths and ripping flesh, and how often men forget how sharply the wind stings in a fury, how it rips the leaves from the trees and strips the snow from the ground and moves thunderstorms swiftly by. And then there is stillness, the silence of frightened forest creatures cut only by the ragged shudder of his breath, the drip of blood to the dirt.

With all of the care in the world, Yuri and his mournful, wrathful winds ease the body from the fallen tree’s splintered roots. All too clearly, Yuri can remember holding this body differently, reverently, his palm pressed against the rise and fall of a chest that’s gone still and slick with spilt blood. It is here that the morning dew comes to his eyes again, and for the first time in his long existence, Yuri bends his head to a man and weeps for him, trembling like a leaf. He twists his fingers maniacally into the dampening fabric of Otabek’s chemise, reaching up to cradle his face, to shut the lids of glassy, unseeing eyes, to draw Otabek’s head to his chest and bury his face in his coarse hair and spill tears for a _damn human,_ dead in Yuri’s arms as they always, always are.

* * *

It is only with the hint of morning light that the women held captive by the bandits begin to cry aloud in their camp, struggling in their bonds. Yuri thinks to kill them too, to stop the noise, but he has never killed women and children. Instead, as if something guides him to do it, he takes the bloodstained silver dagger and, silent as a ghost, cuts them loose. He still looks a terror and he knows it, stained with red and brown and streaked with tears as he is. It's enough to deter them, sending them fleeing back to the safety of the road. Cutting them loose is what Otabek would be doing right now, isn't it? The right thing, whatever that means?

Yuri thinks it would be kinder to leave them for the beasts.

 _Yuri,_ his little wind says, winding around him like a serpent. _Yuri, Yuri, we are home, but at what cost?_ It sighs. _The forest…_

Yuri ignores the flashes of her face in the puddles and bark of the trees, everything dulled down to a single point. The weight of the world crashes down on him. It threatens to rip him apart as he ghosts about in the dawn, collecting dew on the hems of his wispy robes that melt into the air and make it heavy.

The branches rustle, far off, and a flash of red in the underbrush draws his eyes. It’s a fox; Yuri nearly screams at it too, but he realises it's not _the_ fox, not other-Yuuri, when it flicks its single tail and blinks unknowingly at him. Yuri bares his teeth and it bounds off.

A terrible idea seeds itself in Yuri’s mind as the fox’s tail swishes away. A horrible, horrible idea. But terrible, horrible ideas are the only thing left in this shitty game for him. There’s blood everywhere: Bandit blood on his shorn sleeves, mending themselves from the breeze and the tree-cotton. Yuri’s own blood, reddish in its halfling state but silver under his fingernails where he’s raked them through his scalp. Otabek’s, mixed with the rest all down Yuri’s front. Precious life-blood, offered over and over again but ripped unwillingly from him in the end. Yuri’s whole being throbs with hatred at the thought. This isn't a game anymore.

‘Give him back,’ he demands, his voice low and dangerous.

The leaves rustle of their own volition. Laughter. Yuri stands still where his rage has stilled into cold fury, glaring into the woods with ice in his gaze. The forest slowly quiets as she realises that he’s serious, dying down until only his faithful wind’s howl in the distance, echoing the grief that grows and grows and grows within him with each passing moment, disturbs the silence.

‘Give him back,’ Yuri repeats. ‘You get your little playthings all the time, and all I’ve ever been is a faithful servant, doing what you made me to do and defending the woods from the poison of men.’ He thrusts his hands out, still stained with blood, in example. “Even when you stripped me of my being, I did my damn job. Even after you stole what was _mine,_ I did what you asked of me at my creation. Give him back, and I’ll keep doing it.’

 _Or what?_ his small wind translates, even as the rest of the gusts shriek and wail in the mountains.

Yuri turns back to the clearing where he left Otabek in the red-stained grass, guarded by the little faeries who watched him tear the bandits to shreds. Around him, the winds pull the dampness from his cheeks, dripping his fae-tears into the dirt beneath his bare feet.

‘Give him back,’ he says, deadly quiet, ‘or the next time the King in the North deigns to step foot in these woods, I will kill him.’

The winds don’t have to relay a message this time: Yuri feels the forest’s disbelieving horror deep within his bones, trembling under his feet. _You would not dare,_ she whispers into his very being.

‘I do dare,’ Yuri spits back. ‘And I will. I will draw his gaze away from his fox and lure him to the river and hold him down until the water steals his breath. And when it does, I’ll rip him up with my fingernails, bit by bit, and feed him to the fish as the water goes red. I’ll leave his bones for the rusalky to gnaw on, you evil bitch, and you can fucking watch me do it.’

The ground shifts, trying to knock him down and make him kneel, but he takes to the air before he can fall, baring his teeth at the trees where they shift restlessly. ‘And if you can strip my powers from me again before I can do it,’ he hisses, ‘it won't matter. My fury boils in my veins. I will kill him anyways. Then you’ll kill me in return, but I don’t care. If you can catch me before I lay my hands on your precious Viktor, you will still lose me, but I swear to you that my vengeance is my bond.’ Yuri takes a gasping breath, issuing his final warning. _‘Give. Him. Back!’_

Everything goes completely silent. Even his own winds die down and quiet, holding their airy breaths to hear the forest’s response. Tentatively, tree nymphs and frightened pixies peer at him, untethered to the earth, wild as an element can be. Yuri does not budge from his place, that precious hair of his floating around him as if submerged in the deepest of lakes.

 _Very well,_ the forest finally whispers. _I will return what has been stolen._

Yuri feels like his heel has been pricked, all of his great, fiery rage seeping out of him in a rush. Slowly, he drifts back to the ground. ‘Thank you,’ he whispers back.

The forest is silent for a moment. Then, in the distance, a horse’s whinny rings through the glade and Sholpan’s hooves thunder in the dirt, bringing the mare to Yuri’s side. Still, she shies away from his touch at first, but though his hand trembles as he holds it out to her, she grants him her reluctant trust and allows him to steady himself as he strokes her muzzle.

 _But your insolence will not go unpunished,_ the forest murmurs at last, deep in his bones. _The hero will go home alive and well, but your name will not have crossed his lips, nor your image his mind._ And she murmurs it to him, his true name, in the language of wing-flutters and faerie laughter and the rustle of the wind against the leaves. Yuri shudders to hear it as it anchors him where he stands. _He will not return to these woods for you._

There is not enough anger in the world to spur him to fight her again; a soul-exhaustion has settled into his being. Fury cannot burn forever.

_Sweet as honey, gone tomorrow._

‘If that’s the price for his life,’ he says, his voice cracking with the ache of that strange thing that fluttered briefly in his chest, ‘then I accept.’

* * *

Far up in the trees, the wind-spirit of the great northern forest clings invisibly to his branch over a young man checking his mare over for injuries, gently pulling the leaves and twigs from her mane and feeding her grain from his own hand. Bound in the chains of his own making, Yuri watches as Otabek pulls himself onto Sholpan’s back, made whole and untouched again by magic as old as the earth itself. The knight glances up just once. He looks straight through Yuri, thin as air in the leaves. Then, without a second glance, he turns for the path that leads beyond where Yuri has ever gone.

Yuri wants to scream. Hurl insults into the wind. He wants to write verse on the breeze, sing sweet songs of enchantment. Say something. Anything to turn Otabek’s head or cause him to tarry for just a moment.

But he can't. Won't. The world feels like it's slipping out through Yuri’s fingers, and though the solution is simple, the cost of calling out hangs heavily over Otabek’s head in a sharp reminder as potent as the blood Yuri can still taste on the air.

Yuri watches instead as Otabek crosses the threshold between forest and freedom.

‘Goodbye, asshole,’ Yuri murmurs, his sigh carried on the wind as he melts away.

In the underbrush, a fox’s seven tails swish against the fallen leaves, gleaming red and bluish-black as he disappears into the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.


	7. 7.

Winter comes and goes thrice, and then twice more, before the King in the North ventures into the woods on his own. With him he brings his little harp, but he never so much as plucks it; the faeries gather around him at the stream and pepper him with questions and their adorations, the forest herself swatting away the bloodsucking insects and offering him the perfect place to perch. But he doesn't sit upon his king’s rock, as he has every time since; instead, he stands and waits, beautiful fae eyes glued on the trees in the distance. 

It is moments of waiting patiently like this that bring King Viktor his Yuuri, shy and clever and beautiful as his sleek fox-skin, fire burning deep in his eyes. Gently, wordlessly, Viktor guides Yuuri to the rock and takes a seat at his feet, gazing up at him with an adoration that would make a wind-spirit gag. 

But Yuri doesn't, if only to prove that it’s possible to grow. He wants to gag, though. It’s gross enough, the look Yuuri sends back, but Yuri has lived his life being as changeable as the winds, and patience, he decides, is a fair enough evolution. So he just watches instead, leaned up on the tree as the pixies move to weave flowers into Viktor’s silver, fae hair and pepper the foreign fox with questions the riddler answers back with ease. 

‘Kitsune,’ Yuuri says. ‘That is what I am called where I come from.’ 

Yuri offers only one question before the rusalky and the leshiye arrive to speak with their king. He thinks of his threat, Viktor’s pale throat under his hands in the depths of the river, scratching at his arms with betrayal deep in his pretty eyes. As much as Yuri finds him obnoxious, there is guilt in the memory; Viktor is not evil, nor foul or lecherous. Faerie blood in his veins makes him family, no matter how diluted. ‘Did you get the gold branches?’

‘From the Hourai trees!’ Yuuri says, and beams. ‘A reminder of home. I did.’ 

Viktor preens. ‘A foreign knight under my service retrieved them for me,’ he says. Yuri glances away. ‘I thought they might convince you to find me…’

‘Idiots,’ Yuri mutters. ‘What do you want with gold branches anyways? They’re dead now, aren't they?’ 

‘Not entirely,’ Yuuri says. ‘I think I might start a grove of them, and see if they’ll take to the mountains here. They make for a sweet source of sap and fruit.’ Along their feet, the little fae titter amongst themselves in excitement, and Yuuri smiles softly. ‘Hourai is many, many days from here. Your knight must have been very persistent to make the journey.’ He looks to Yuri as he says this, his eyes glimmering with foxfire. 

‘Yes,’ Viktor says, something like a smile on his lips. He glances to Yuri as well. ‘Brave, too.’ 

Yuri turns away, chewing on his lip. There are a thousand insults brewing beneath his skin, aiming to bubble forth at the surface and spill from him like tar. But he thinks instead of Otabek in the night, sword glinting and jaw held sharp and tight with concentration in the pursuit of honor and justice. Otabek laying down his life for the people he served until it finally stuck in the hopes that it would save them from a windless hell.

‘Yeah,’ Yuri says finally, folding his arms. ‘Yeah, he was.’

* * *

He sees the man at dawn, when the horizon is painted in shades of flaming orange and soft blues and the coming of the day brings Yuri drifting slowly to the ground, his night’s patrol at an end. The sight makes him pause, squinting out in the distance at the pinprick figure slowly but surely making his way towards the edge of the woods. 

Yuri is deluding himself if he imagines that every man approaching from the horizon is the one he’s looking for. But from this far away, he can almost imagine… so he stays there, hovering above the trees, watching and waiting and dreaming.

But his imagination, for five winters long, has been a wild thing. Every dark-haired man on a horse is his knight, returned to visit his bitter monster in the woods. Yuri thinks that the traveller’s eyes must be clear, his skin clean, his hair washed but windblown from the journey… 

He squints at the spot of red darting about in front of the rider, leading him on a chase. No, not a chase; merely one following the other. And the other is a fox. Reddish fur, pep to his step, seven tails shimmering in the veil between human sight and reality. 

Yuri straightens. 

There is a new maturity to Otabek’s face. It’s sharper, harder. Yuri supposes that in the life of a human, this small handful of sun-cycles has allowed it to happen. There is experience weighing on his shoulders as well. But these observations are so small and insignificant, made and immediately shoved to the side as all his rational thought screeches to a halt. 

Yuri doesn’t understand. 

But this is no illusion; he can hear the thudding of Sholpan’s hooves over the thawing dirt path, the swish of Yuuri’s tails as he leaps into the underbrush at the edge of the woods, the clicking of armour on armour. Yuri can feel Otabek’s excited, determined, clueless breaths stirring the air, hear the thunder of his strong heart, taste the anticipation of a hero following the wily fox who bested him in a riddle game in the search of what Yuri is sure was the promise of an adventure. 

Clever, clever kitsune. Yuri cannot remember telling a single soul the price of Otabek’s life, but Yuuri has found a loophole regardless. Why? How? At what cost? A host of questions swirl in Yuri’s mind, but the answers aren't important. Not now. 

For a moment, Yuri remembers Otabek in the meadow, eyes glittering, honey on his lips. 

Forever seems an eternity from now. Now, when Otabek’s eyes shine with the same light, when his first step within the invisible fence anchoring Yuri to these trees yields a soft sigh and a shift of ignorance to understanding. Now, when a farewell becomes a welcome back. Now, when the sun itself seems to stall to watch. 

The forest does not stop Yuri from stepping into Otabek’s line of sight, trembling from head to toe. If he reaches out for Otabek, Yuri thinks the knight will disappear between his fingers like smoke. Or perhaps Otabek’s eyes will sweep over him with the same cautious curiosity of their first meeting, and everything that there was will have been washed clean from their history like a lake scrubbing its shores into blank slates. 

Or perhaps… 

They stop and stare at each other on the path. A beat rests in the air. Everything draws tight like a hunter’s bow until Otabek relaxes, Yuri’s name a quiet sigh on his lips. 

Yuri swallows. Steps closer. 

‘Don't you trust me?’ he asks, his voice wavering.

‘No,’ Otabek says. His voice is rough and gentle all the same. ‘No, I don't.’ 

Breath caught in his throat, Yuri goes to the edge of the woods to bring Otabek home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for joining me on this random foray into fantasy AU. Next up: More in the Ridiculous Automobiles 'verse, as highly requested :)

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr at [russianfeya.tumblr.com](https://russianfeya.tumblr.com). Your comments mean the world to me.


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